PKIX Working Group D. Pinkas (Bull)
INTERNET-DRAFT T. Gindin (IBM)
Expires: November, 2000 May, 2000
Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure
Permanent Identifier
<draft-ietf-pkix-pi-00.txt>
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
all provisions of Section 10 of [RFC 2026].
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Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document define a new form of name, called permanent
identifier, that may be included in the subjectAltName extension
of a public key certificate issued to a physical person.
The permanent identifier is an optional feature that may be used
by a CA to indicate that the certificate relates to the same
individual even if the name of that individual has changed.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
Please send comments on this document to the ietf-pkix@imc.org
mailing list.
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1 Introduction
This specification is one part of a family of standards for the
X.509 Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for the Internet. It is based
on RFC 2459, which defines underlying certificate formats and
semantics needed for a full implementation of this standard.
The subject field of a public key certificate identifies the entity
associated with the public key stored in the subject public key
field. The subject name may be carried in the subject field and/or
the subjectAltName extension. Where it is non-empty, the subject
field MUST contain an X.500 distinguished name (DN). The DN MUST be
unique for each subject entity certified by the one CA as defined by
the issuer name field.
The subject name changes as soon as one of the components of that
name gets changed. There are several reasons for this change to
happen.
For company's or organization's employees, the person may get
a different position within the same company and thus will
move from an organization unit to another one. Including the
organisation unit in the name may however be very useful to
allow the relying parties (RPs) using that certificate to
identify the right individual.
For citizens, an individual may change their name by legal
processes, especially women as a result of marriage.
A permanent identifier may be useful both in the context of access
control and of non repudiation.
For access control, the permanent identifier may be used in
an ACL (Access Control List) instead of the DN or any other
form of name and would not need to be changed, even if the
subject name of the individual changes.
For non-repudiation, the permanent identifier may be used to
link different transactions to the same individual, even when
the subject name of the individual changes.
When two certificates from the same CA contain the same permanent
identifier, then these certificates relate to the same individual.
2. Definition
A permanent identifier is a name assigned by an organization,
unique within that organization, that singles out a particular
individual from all other individuals. A CA which includes such
an identifier in a certificate is certifying that any different
public key certificate containing that identifier refers to the
same individual.
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The use of a permanent identifier is optional. This name is
defined as a form of otherName from the GeneralName structure in
SubjectAltName. The permanent identifier is defined as follows:
id-on-permanentIdentifier AttributeType ::= { id-on 2 }
PermanentIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
assignerAuthority GeneralName OPTIONAL,
identifier Name
}
The assignerAuthority field of this attribute, when present,
identifies the name of the organization responsible for assigning
the content of the identifier field. When the assignerAuthority
field is missing, the assigner Authority is the CA itself and its
name is assumed to be the issuer name of the certificate.
The identifier field may contain any series of directory
attributes. In particular, it may contain a serialNumber
attribute. A serialNumber attribute may be used for two
different purposes in the DN of a person:
1) In a DN or a SubjectAltName to differentiate between
two names (for two different individuals) that otherwise
would not be different.
2) In the identifier field from a permanent identifier.
This is the recommended use for national ID's and
employee ID's, for example.
Note: the full arc of the object identifier is derived using:
id-pkix OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { iso(1) identified-organization(3)
dod(6) internet(1) security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) }
id-on OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { id-pkix 8 } -- other name forms
3. Security considerations
A given individual may have at an instant of time or at different
instants of time multiple forms of identities. When two
certificates from the same CA contain two identical
permanentIdentifiers in an otherName from a SubjectAltName, then a
relying party may determine that the two certificates refer to the
same individual.
4. References
[RFC 2026] S. Bradner, "The Internet Standards Process -
Revision 3 ¯,November 1996.
[RFC 2119] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", March 1997.
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[RFC 2459] R. Housley, W. Ford, W. Polk, and D.Solo, "Internet X.509
Public Key Infrastructure: Certificate and CRL Profile", January
1999.
[X.501] ITU-T Recommendation X.501 (1997 E): Information Technology
- Open Systems Interconnection - The Directory: Models, June 1997.
[X.509] ITU-T Recommendation X.509 (1997 E): Information Technology
- Open Systems Interconnection - The Directory: Authentication
Framework, June 1997.
[X.520] ITU-T Recommendation X.520: Information Technology - Open
Systems Interconnection - The Directory: Selected Attribute Types,
June 1997.
[X.680] ITU-T Recommendation X.680: Information Technology -
Abstract Syntax Notation One, 1997.
5. Author's Addresses
Denis Pinkas
Bull S.A.
12 rue de Paris
B.P. 59
78231 Le Pecq
FRANCE
Email: Denis.Pinkas@bull.net
Thomas Gindin
IBM Corporation
6710 Rockledge Drive
Bethesda, MD 20817
USA
Email: tgindin@us.ibm.com
6 Intellectual Property Rights
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it
has made any effort to identify any such rights. Information on the
IETF's procedures with respect to rights in standards-track and
standards related documentation can be found in BCP-11. Copies of
claims of rights made available for publication and any assurances of
licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to
obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary
rights by implementors or users of this specification can be obtained
from the IETF Secretariat.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights which may cover technology that may be required to practice
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this standard. Please address the information to the IETF Executive
Director.
APPENDIX
ASN.1 definitions
A.1 1988 ASN.1 Module
PKIXpermanentidentifier88 {iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6)
internet(1) security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) id-mod(0)
id-mod-permanent-identifier-88(14) }
DEFINITIONS EXPLICIT TAGS ::=
BEGIN
-- EXPORTS ALL --
IMPORTS
id-pkix, AttributeType, Name, GeneralName
FROM PKIX1Explicit88 {iso(1) identified-organization(3)
dod(6) internet(1) security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7)
id-mod(0) id-pkix1-explicit-88(1)}
GeneralName
FROM PKIX1Implicit88 {iso(1) identified-organization(3)
dod(6) internet(1) security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7)
id-mod(0) id-pkix1-implicit-88(2)};
-- Object Identifiers
-- Externally defined OIDs
-- Arc for other name forms
id-on OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { id-pkix 8 }
-- permanent identifier
id-on-permanentIdentifier AttributeType ::= { id-on 2 }
PermanentIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
assignerAuthority GeneralName OPTIONAL,
identifier Name
}
END
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A.2 1993 ASN.1 Module
PKIXpermanentidentifier93 {iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6)
internet(1) security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) id-mod(0)
id-mod-permanent-identifier-93(15) }
DEFINITIONS EXPLICIT TAGS ::=
BEGIN
-- EXPORTS ALL --
IMPORTS
GeneralName
FROM PKIX1Implicit93 {iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6)
internet(1) security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) id-mod(0)
id-pkix1-implicit-93(4)}
id-pkix, ATTRIBUTE, Name
FROM PKIX1Explicit93 {iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6)
internet(1) security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) id-mod(0)
id-pkix1-explicit-93(3)};
-- Object Identifiers
-- Externally defined OIDs
-- Arc for other name forms
id-on OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { id-pkix 8 }
-- Locally defined OIDs
id-on-permanentIdentifier OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { id-on 2 }
-- permanent identifier
permanentIdentifier ATTRIBUTE ::= {
WITH SYNTAX PermanentIdentifier,
ID id-on-permanentIdentifier }
PermanentIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
assignerAuthority GeneralName OPTIONAL,
identifier Name
}
END
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E. Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
included on all such copies and derivative works. In addition, the
ASN.1 modules presented in Appendices A and B may be used in whole or
in part without inclusion of the copyright notice. However, this
document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process shall be
followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns. This
document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS
IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK
FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL
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